How to Care for Jumping Spiders!

if you're looking for a new unusual pet that is easy to take care of cheap to take care of has very little space requirements it is full of personality look no further than the jumping spider today we're going to talk about how to care for a jumping spider from setting up their enclosure to handling to feeding and watering and everything in between so if you decide to add one to your family you'll know exactly how to take care of one jumping spiders are probably one of the most underrated invertebrates you can have as a pet they are insanely curious and they'll follow you around their enclosure they'll use every inch of their enclosure with how explorative they are and even though they have eight eyes their two largest ones are forward-facing and they just make their entire expressions irresistible cute the jumping spider joining us today is either a fitted posad X or bull jumping spider or a fit if this Regius or wriggles jumping spider we don't know exactly what species he is so if there's any experienced keepers on here who can identify him for us that would be wonderful we're still kind of new to this hobby if you have one as a pet though you won't want to use its common name when referring to it in general in the jumping spider community you're gonna want to refer to it by its scientific name because there are multiple common names for each species which just can add some confusion so by using the scientific name people will know exactly what species are talking about but he actually chose us in a way we found him crawling around our fish tank he was literally on the hood of our fish tank when we found him oh you just went into his little nest cute his name is chalupa by the way we decided not to keep him though our selves and instead we gave him to some good friends of ours who had been wanting a jumping spider but then we immediately regretted that decision because we fell in love with him and I'm so lucky I get to borrow you for today's video so what we did instead was we bought a couple captive bred baby jumping spiders my gosh they're so cute and tiny I can't wait here is biggest chalupa there are many different species of jumping spiders you can keep as pets although most people just keep the species that they can find in their own backyard for the most part people just find their jumping spider outside and they bring it in keep it as a pet I know it sounds kind of weird because in the reptile community it's pretty frowned upon to keep a wild caught animal but it's a whole different story when it comes to jumping spiders to find one you're gonna want to look on the warm walls of your house that's generally a good spots for them to hang out because they like to bask in the Sun on warm afternoons you can also look on sliding glass windows or just around your house in places where they can kind of tuck behind a Ledge or something yet still come out into the Sun if they want to warm up but with the increasing popularity of jumping spiders even in just the last two three years there are a lot more becoming available as captive bred specimens there's a lot more people breeding them nowadays if you'd rather go the captive-bred route then we recommend just joining a jumping spider group on Facebook or in looking online there are more breeders nowadays than ever before ok let's talk about enclosures first off jumping spiders are arboreal meaning they love to climb around and they prefer more of a vertical environment than a horizontal one they can't adapt so if all you have is a horizontally oriented enclosure they'll probably be fine but they prefer something more vertically oriented a lot of keepers will just use a container like this they're kind of like the beanie baby containers you know that would showcase beanie babies cotton bolls and these will work just fine you basically want to avoid a mesh enclosure because the environment will dry out a lot faster with mesh and one of the biggest threats to a jumping spider is dehydration so you want something that's more enclosed with just a couple of ventilation holes instead there really is no minimum size requirement for a jumping spider but since they're so active they'll use a lot of space so if you give them a decent amount of room they will totally utilize it another option for an enclosure would be this guy this is one of those newer products they're not a sponsor we just think is a really cool enclosure it's their small invertebrate enclosure that like super easy to put together it just puzzles together really well and it transports flatter it collapses really well so we really like this enclosure and I wanted to show you guys in case you wanted to use it too if it's not out yet it will be soon so in that case you're just getting a sneak peek to a new Zillah product something to keep in mind with the enclosure for your jumping spider is how it opens these guys make their nests at the top of their enclosure so if the lid comes off you're gonna tear open their nest every time you open it up so instead you want an enclosure that either opens about a third of the way down so that you can remove the lid without damaging their nest or I'll just want a front opening enclosure substrate should just be a soil that is slightly moist again dehydration is a threat to these little guys especially when they're young so make sure that it stays slightly damp yet not stopping wet you'll probably want to lightly miss the substrate occasionally just to make sure it doesn't dry out in my opinion the most fun part is decorating the enclosure and it's really simple I mean you only have 4 by 8 inches to work with with a jumping spider you can get your decor from literally going outside and grabbing sticks and branches and leaves and bringing them inside however you do want to disinfect them of course because mites are threat to jumping spiders so to clean and disinfect a core that comes from the outdoors I recommend either dipping it in boiling water for a couple minutes or you can bake it in the oven at about 250 degrees for like 20 minutes and that should kill anything that's on the surface some people aren't worried about bugs being on the decor they collect from the outdoors but again mites are a threat to jumping spiders as well as pesticides if what you collect had been treated or sprayed with pesticides those are gonna instantly kill your jumping spider if you don't want to get decor from outside or you don't know what to grab exactly you can instead buy decor like leaves or flowers fake plants from the Dollar Tree super cheap way to do it your jumping spider though will need some solid sturdy objects to crawl around on though not just leaves if you grab branches from the Dorris those could work if you don't want to grab your decor from outside then you can just use cork bark I personally prefer just the look of cork bark so that's why I use it in my enclosures as opposed to grabbing sticks from the outdoors and cork bark provides a nice lightweight yet sturdy surface for them to crawl around on decorating the enclosure is totally up to you and you could deck it out however you want really the jumping spider isn't gonna care how pretty it is but it's decorate it if you want to decorate it with flowers and leaves and attach them to the branches or the cork bark I would recommend not using a hot glue gun to attach them because with spritzing or with contact with water over time this will lose its adhesive abilities so instead a better solution that's more permanent is just stapling the fake flowers or leaves to the cork bark itself and that's it that's your enclosure super easy you don't need any additional heating or lighting for a jumping spider they just like room temperature so now let's talk about how to feed in water your jumping spider it's typically not recommended to use a water dish because like other spiders they can drown in it jumping spiders get most of the moisture they need from their prey items which we'll talk about next but you can lightly miss their enclosure and they'll drink the water droplet off of the walls are off of their decor however if you miss them just give them one spritz that's all they need that's more than enough water for them some keepers will however use a water dish so if you decide to go that route then just make sure you put a cotton ball or a sponge of sorts in the water dish so that there isn't any like open water available that they could drown in instead then they can just drink water off of the sponge it'll also prevent the feeder insects from drowning too and use de chlorinated water of course I like to use the API water conditioner because it's very concentrated and two drops will treat an entire gallon of water so one bottle will last you a lifetime by the way I'll put links to all products mentioned in this video in the description below in case you need to pick anything up now let's talk about diets and feeding feeding a jumping spider is probably the most exciting part about owning one of them because they are great hunters they have excellent vision I mean if you're walking by their enclosure their eyes will follow you walking by they're very movement-based so it doesn't take long for them to notice if you've dropped a cricket or another prey item in their enclosure and they'll pretty quickly hunt it down you can feed them pretty much any appropriately sized insect as long as it isn't a beetle of sorts because that hardshell is hard for them to get through and they for some reason don't really like moths a whole lot from what I hear but crickets and fruit flies and dubia roaches all work great as feeders if you use dubia roaches though those like to dig under the soil and it's hard for the jumpers to find them so I would recommend feeding feeding them in a different container if you want to do dubia roaches so it might just be easier to stick with crickets and fruit flies and things that move around a bit more on the surface when it comes to size you can feed a jumping spider and insect that is just about as big as the spider itself they are pretty bold when it comes to hunting and eating some of them though it seemed more intimidated by large prey items and prefer smaller ones so I don't want to anthropomorphize a jumping spider too much but if yours seems to be afraid of prey items that are roughly the same size as it try something a little bit smaller and it might feel more confident taking that down instead if it's tough to get live feeders jumping spiders are opportunistic feeders they will eat pre killed prey items so if you have like your only cricket left is dead but it's a good size throw it in there he feeds it you probably will unlike reptiles that often need their prey to be dusted with a multivitamin or a calcium powder you don't need any of that for jumping spiders you'll want to feed them every two to three days or so maybe 2 to 4 days depending on the age and size of the jumping spider you can typically tell when they're ready for their next meal just by observing the size of their abdomen after a meal the abdomen will be quite large but after they've had a couple days to digest it it will shrink so over time you'll learn what is a full abdomen and an empty abdomen just by observing your jumping spider next let's talk about Co having jumping spiders don't do it they can be cannibalistic so one per enclosure cleaning is pretty easy with these guys unlike some tarantulas or other spiders that will create huge webs all around their enclosure jumpers limit their nest to just one little spot usually near the top of their enclosure but that is their home and they don't rebuild their nests they keep building onto a same nest so that's why it's so important not to tear it like if you had a lid lifted off the top that home is very important to them unlike tarantulas which when they molt they'll usually remove their exoskeleton from their nest and they can't clean it up jumping spiders take their exoskeleton and they add it to the nest it just adds more building material for their house apparently so you'll notice over time their nest will just keep growing if you need to move them though like say you're moving this guy chalupa you want to check out the habitat I just built for you first off to entice a jumping spider to move forward instead of like poking with your finger you can simply use a macaw feather or if you don't have them at all I suppose you could use a paintbrush so we're going to nudge them forward check it out dude check out your new home if you have to move them to a new enclosure like this they will rebuild their nest it's not the end of the world they're pretty adaptable and tardy since their nest is located at the top it makes cleaning really easy by the way cleaning is just a matter of removing any decor from their enclosure and Toodee webbing it again they don't make a web in their entire enclosure but they often will trail behind a small thread of silk as they move around so that may accumulate a little bit and you'll want to remove it from time to time but as far as waste goes I mean you'll have like the remains of their prey items after they're done eating them but their poop isn't noticeable so cleaning is a breeze with jumping spiders now let's talk about handling your jumping spider again to get them to move you can just kind of touch their abdomen from the back with a paintbrush there we go we jump right on to my hand and they are very curious little fellas like I've said before they're pretty docile they can bite they do have impressive looking things but the strength behind those fangs is typically not strong enough to break the skin on your fingers it could possibly break the skin on the like thinner areas of skin on your body but when are you gonna hold a jumping spider by your ankle I mean your hands are gonna be just fine and even though they can bite their venom is not medically significant to humans so really you want to be more concerned over their safety when handling than your own by this I mean use clean hands use clean hands to hold these guys any chemicals can negatively impact them and any baby jumping spiders you really don't want to hold at all you want to wait until they're you are so cute you want to wait until they're a decent size before you start holding them I don't know if there's a certain measurement out there that's a minimum handling size but just be smart about it be gentle with them and don't push it as their name implies they do like to jump but they will often follow themselves with a thin strand of silk but if they don't create that stuff behind them they can't fall and hurt themselves so just treat them like the little fragile beings that they are and you'll be all right you are so cute and lastly I would like to just briefly touch on sexing jumping spiders it's not too difficult once they reach a decent size as little babies you can't really sex them as far as I'm aware but once they get to be a decent size like chalupa here males have pretty bulbous pedipalps they kind of make them look like they're wearing boxing gloves and males also have very long front legs in addition all males have some sort of like mating dance or ritual to show off to the ladies but that can vary from species to species come on you can do it Jim Jim I haven't trained you can do it oh yeah worked all day on that but yeah I really like this new enclosure by Zilla I think it's a really cool like innovative design so I would recommend one of these for a jumping spider it's just perfect plus they're coming out with a larger version for tarantulas in both a vertical and a horizontal form oh my gosh their faces are just so cute guys if you haven't yet Google close up jumping spider face oh my gosh so that pretty much covers how to take care of a pet jumping spider they're amazing animals guys again super underrated they're so fascinating and you think it but they're actually pretty full of personality for a little spider I hope you all learned something new and enjoy today's video as always thank you to our patreon backers for supporting our Channel we love all you guys your support is just so nice and thank you to everybody who is just supporting by watching our videos if you have additional tips or tricks to share feel free to include them in the comments below and we will see you next time if they're feeling threatened they will well that was a good jump come on jump Jilla but jump oh yeah good - Luba oh you're so yeah Treon backers for supporting this channel oh you're on my ring that was so cute you

Channel: Snake Discovery

Views: 1,400,914

Rating: 4.9554954 out of 5

Keywords: jumping spider, caring for jumping spiders, pet jumping spider, how to care for jumping spider, jumping spider care guide, jumping spiders as pets, pet spiders, how to care for spiders, spider care guide

Id: GjKg2gbbVpw

Length: 16min 9sec (969 seconds)

Published: Tue May 19 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/CrunchMunchSlurp]

Nice! I was just looking into getting a pet jumping spider, thanks for the video man!